Sword Polishing 101
by Alby Mangroves
Summary: For a show with supposedly no homoerotic overtones, Merlin sure features a lot of sword polishing. Ficlets, drawings and drabbles written for various prompt fills. Canon era, modern AU, all-human, whatever. Anything goes.
1. Underneath, Part 1: Skin

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_There's a fantastic new community on LiveJournal, called Camelot_Drabble. Each week, a prompt is issued, and the responses can be 100-1000 words, and you can write as many responses as you like. Come and join us :)_

_http:/ camelot-drabble . livejournal . com/_

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**Prompt: SKIN**

This plot arc is called** Underneath** - there will be several chapters.

**Summary: **Merlin loves life drawing, especially when a particular model poses for the class. Asking Arthur out for coffee seems a no-brainer, until Merlin realizes he has to talk to him. In words.

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Merlin sharpens the tip of the conté into a point, then fusses with his toolbox to stop his hands from shaking.

It's him again, the same model as last week, the one who came over to see everyone's work after class as they were packing up.

Merlin had lingered, his eyes full of skin peppered with tiny freckles across the shoulders, and delicious dimples accenting a shapely rump. Then, he'd rushed home to draw and wank himself silly.

Last week, the pose was a reclining one. This one though, this one might kill him.

The model—the lecturer calls him Arthur—stretches his arms above his head and suddenly it's not just beautiful skin Merlin can see, it's the power of his muscle and the strength of his bones.

Immediately alive and in his element, Merlin sets the conté to paper, intent on finding the magic underneath the model's skin- that secret appeal, the indefinable _something_ that makes this particular man so magnetic.

When he looks up, the model's blue eyes are smiling at him from beneath a quirked brow.

_Ah,_ Merlin thinks_, a challenge._

His hand steadies.

This, he knows. This, he understands.

Breathing deeply, he reaches into the pocket of his heart where inspiration lives, and draws the model's beauty from within himself.

Later, he'll linger once more and show Arthur his drawing, proud of what he has achieved, and excited at what he's about to attempt.

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**A/N: Want to see Merlin's drawing of Arthur? It's mine really, but I'm letting Merlin take the credit for it. http:/pics . livejournal . com/alby_mangroves/pic/0000qfye - just remove the spaces.**


	2. Underneath, Part 2: Scars

_Written for Camelot_Drabble: __http:/ camelot-drabble . livejournal . com/_

**Warning: Contains mentions of past cutting.**

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**Prompt: SCARS**

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Merlin folds himself into the cafe booth, too long and awkward for the smallish thing. He feels like he should be tucking in his elbows and knees like a giant praying mantis.

On the opposite side of the little table, Arthur doesn't seem to have this problem. He slides gracefully into the booth and owns it. Merlin tries not to ogle his easy grace.

"So," Arthur begins with a lopsided grin.

Merlin can't help but return the grin, though his mouth doesn't feel anywhere near as natural making that shape as Arthur's looks.

"So," he replies, looking sideways at the approaching waitress. When she arrives, he's surprised by Arthur's order of Earl Grey, slice of lemon.

"Tea. Huh," he says unnecessarily, looking at his own hands on the table, fingers perpetually stained and rough, thinking _Earl Grey. The_ guy _drinks Earl Grey_, like it means something profound. Merlin is probably the antithesis of Earl bloody Grey.

Calling in the reinforcements to help him deal with this sad discovery, Merlin gives the waitress a rueful smile. "Coffee, black please, lots of sugar."

"What's lots?" she asks, her eyebrow positively Spockesque.

"Just bring the whole bag," he mutters, earning a giggle.

"Not sweet enough?" Arthur quips, the moment the waitress turns her back.

"Never," Merlin smiles ruefully. Reflexively, he punctuates his distress by tugging his hair, all rough fistfuls and clawed fingers. When he looks up, Arthur is watching intently. He finds himself looking away, unable to stand the scrutiny. Normally, Merlin is the one doing the studying.

Suddenly, he feels Arthur's hot, light touch, fleeting across his forearm, and before he can draw back, Arthur asks, "What's this?"

He lowers his hand, looking at his own skin as though for the first time. His leather cuff has slipped down a little and the sleeve has ridden up, revealing rows of scar tissue, some in lines, some shaped like letters, just above Merlin's wrist. He can't believe Arthur's nerve at going straight_ there_.

"Just a scar," Merlin explains, covering it gently with the palm of his other hand as though it still hurts. Maybe it does. "Young, stupid, you know. All the things," he says, awkwardly clicking his tongue out the side of his mouth and nodding as though he said something sage.

Arthur just nods quietly, intense eyes refusing to look contrite.

"What does it say?" he asks quietly.

Merlin frowns, retrieving all the lies he's told over the years, all the times he's hidden this. He sifts through them looking for the right one, the half-truth that will suit this situation, suit _this person_ who might be important.

He looks up to Arthur's confronting gaze. "_Lance_," he blurts out the truth, having taken too long to construct a lie. "It used to say _Lance_, until I cut it up."

Merlin feels the silence deep in his gut, like the quake of a door slamming. He can almost hear Arthur's thoughts. _He's a cutter. He's a cutter. He's a-_

Around them, the cafe continues to bustle, the patrons all minding their own business, and Merlin didn't know he was holding his breath until his chest caves in a little and he almost chokes on it. The air is thick with dejection, and maybe it's just as well that they get to this immediately, before Merlin gets really interested and maybe even attached, before-

"And this one?" Arthur's finger strokes gently along Merlin's thumb where a still-red scar angers the skin.

Merlin doesn't need to look down to know which scar Arthur means, but he does, burning the visual of Arthur's golden touch into his brain alongside other shining pebbles gathered in life.

"Stanley knife. I was trimming board for a frame. It slipped."

"Looks like a bad cut," Arthur muses, his finger not in any hurry to move on, just rubbing along the red line like he wants to get to know its texture.

"Bled like a bastard," Merlin agrees, wondering just what the hell's going on here. Arthur pays as much attention to the cut along his thumb as he did to the less forgivable ones on his arm. His eyes are just as intense, that blue, _that blue_, and curious. Interested.

"It's rather soon to compare scars, isn't it?" Merlin says, because he can't stand not to say something, can't stand the suspense.

Arthur smiles with his whole face, and to Merlin's mind there is neither a sight nor a sound for miles, only white teeth and red lips moving, and Arthur's husky voice.

"Well, I figure we need to start somewhere."

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**A/N:** Thanks for reading,


	3. Underneath, Part 3: Surrender

_Written for Camelot_Drabble: __http:/ camelot-drabble . livejournal . com/_

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**Prompt: SURRENDER**

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_... to Merlin's mind there is neither a sight nor a sound for miles, only white teeth and red lips moving, and Arthur's husky voice._

_"Well, I figure we need to start somewhere_."

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Merlin huffs a confused, "Ah," checking Arthur's face for facetiousness. All he finds are frank, unwaveringly sharp eyes.

_Firestarter eyes._

He has no idea what to say, feeling as though he just plopped his heart on the table and it's quivering there in a pool of its own juices, waiting to be put out of its misery. Or something.

Arthur seems oblivious to his distress. "What's in _there_, then?"

Merlin blinks stupidly, Arthur's mouth making a sentence he doesn't understand. He would be happy just watching it pucker over the '_w_' and seeing a hint of pink tongue in the depths of '_th_', but for some reason, it feels socially unacceptable to just stare at a person's mouth, _damn _polite society and all its stupid rules.

Although he has seen Arthur starkers so maybe—

Lost in the quagmire of his mind, Merlin is unprepared when Arthur reaches toward him. He straightens so abruptly that his vinyl seat squeaks like a tiny fart.

_OH MY GOD_, his brain screams from somewhere between mortification and hilarity. Arthur snorts.

_This can't be happening_. Merlin closes then opens his eyes very slowly, wondering what kind of unholy bastard he must have been in a past life to deserve this humiliation.

He looks down at Arthur's hand paused in mid-air, and follows its intended trajectory to Merlin's iPod, lying on top of his messenger bag.

Relentless, Arthur continues to reach for it. "That bad? What's in there, Nana Mouskouri?" He looks up at Merlin's shocked face and snaps his mouth audibly closed. "Oh God. _It is_, isn't it? It's Nana Mouskouri and Tubular Bells and—wait," he continues excitedly, snapping his fingers like he's onto a breakthrough. "Waitwaitwaitwait. It's Theremin music, isn't it? _It is_, isn't it? You're some kind of Theremin _genius_. You probably build them for a living, from blocks of cheap cheese, and snot and old toothpaste tubes, in your underground lair which backs onto a scenic family crypt."

Merlin's bark of laughter is surprised out of him with such brutality that a tiny drop of spit flies out and splats on Arthur's cheek. He stares at the shiny little blight for a second, hoping against hope that Arthur didn't notice this latest horror. Which _of course_ he did, because this is an episode of _**Fuck Merlin's Life**_.

And then, Merlin can't help it, he's laughing so much that he feels like he can't ever stop, maybe stuck in throes of guffawing like a madman forever. He convulses so hard that the muscles of his stomach ache and tremble, howls with it so compulsively that Arthur can't help but laugh, too, wiping at his wet eyes.

They ease down to untethered giggles and then helplessly start up again, only to do it again until Merlin's face feels permanently damaged, though strangely, he feels no pain as he succumbs.

No pain at all.

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Ripe afternoon sun stings Merlin's neck as they walk out of the cafe hours later, Arthur's magnetic presence beside him with his corona of hair refracting light like a shield. Merlin feels as though he might fall right out of his own orbit, like gravity suddenly pulls Arthurward instead of downward.

Measuring his steps carefully, Merlin's never been this ludicrously nervous in his entire life. It's stupid, but he feels like a conspicuously uncoordinated mess, all feet and elbows. What the hell does one do with one's elbows, anyway? Merlin's never had to think about this before. It's completely insane to feel so self-conscious. He tucks his arms in a little more, just in case one spasms and takes Arthur's eye out. It's always fun until somebody loses an eye.

"How's the rest of your week?" Arthur glances over, apparently oblivious to Merlin's ridiculousness.

"I'm working for the next three days, then some studio time, I guess. You?"

"Studio time meaning your art?" It doesn't escape Merlin's notice that Arthur hasn't volunteered his own plans.

"Yeah. I rent a space. I'll probably... yeah. I'm just gonna hang there."

"Give me your phone," Arthur commands, and Merlin finds himself reaching for it, before squinting his eyes and thinking to ask, "Why?"

Arthur just tuts and holds out his hand, fingers snapping at Merlin to hurry up, which he does, somewhat suspiciously.

When it's returned to him, he has **Aaarthur **as a new contact. He smiles, about to touch Edit, when Arthur lightly slaps his hand away.

"Leave it."

"But it's—"

"—on purpose, so you won't have to look far."

Merlin feels the creep of pink over his skin as it burns to the very tips of his ears. He wonders how exactly spontaneous combustion works, and if this is the early onset of one.

When they arrive at the racks where Merlin has locked up his bike, he expects an awkward goodbye and maybe a weird handshake where one of them wishes he'd squeezed harder because it's always good to have a firm handshake. What he _doesn't _expect is for Arthur to grasp him surely by the bicep (which, absurdly, he wishes he'd flexed), and pull up close for a light breath of a kiss on Merlin's hot cheek.

"I'll call you, alright?" he murmurs against Merlin's ear, the breath which carries the words warmer than the afternoon sun.

Merlin's eyes flutter helplessly as the scent of Arthur's skin carrying faint remains of aftershave unfurls in his nostrils, and then, he's gone.

"Hang on—" Merlin starts, but Arthur's already crossing the street, sunlight following him like a lovesick groupie. _You didn't get my number_, he wants to shout, but already the distance is too great.

Later at his studio when he picks up his phone and taps Messages, there is a text, sent to **Aaarthur**, still open on the screen.

_Oh yes, I did._

Merlin stares at it for several long moments, smiling like a loony and tasting his own surrender.

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**A/N:** Thanks for reading! What do you guys think of this plot arc? Interested in seeing more of "Underneath"?


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